The parrot addresses Khujasta at the beginning of the fiftieth night, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): Fiftieth Night (c. 1560): Art, History and Details

The parrot addresses Khujasta at the beginning of the fiftieth night, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): Fiftieth Night (c. 1560) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

As the sun sets on the fiftieth night, Khujasta attempts to leave to visit her lover. She is stopped by Tuti, the clever talking parrot, who begins to tell a story about the princess of Rum and the anguish caused by her son. The parrot’s tale lasts until sunrise, and Khujasta is again unable to meet with her lover.

Object facts

• Title: The parrot addresses Khujasta at the beginning of the fiftieth night, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): Fiftieth Night
• Date: c. 1560
• Culture: Mughal India, court of Akbar (reigned 1556–1605)
• Type: Painting
• Technique: gum tempera, ink, and gold on paper
• Dimensions: Overall: 20.3 x 14 cm (8 x 5 1/2 in.); Painting only: 8.8 x 10 cm (3 7/16 x 3 15/16 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 1962.279.316.a

A detail from the museum

Rum is the Arabic name for Rome.

Collection credit

Gift of Mrs. A. Dean Perry

Further reading listed by the museum

• Chandra, Pramod, and Daniel J. Ehnbom. The Cleveland Tuti-Nama Manuscript and the Origins of Mughal Painting. [Cleveland]: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1976.
• Nakhshabī, Z̤iyāʼ al-Dīn, and Muhammed Ahmed Simsar. Tales of a Parrot = The Cleveland Museum of Art's Ṭūṭīnāma. Cleveland: The Museum, 1978.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.